Of tomatoes and mushrooms

Not so much the mushrooms.

I declared today Tomato Planting Day, and we spent some hours doing just that. I had grand visions of row upon row of neatly bedded plants. We got maybe 40 into the ground before I became thoroughly sick of planting tomato plants and ran away to work on the rabbit yard. Most work is best done in small installments.

Traditional garb for Tomato Planting Day – right shoe off, left glove off.
Kewpie, in the green mask, is helping.

Em and Richard came up yesterday, and we did a little mushrooming on Blanchard Creek Road, and worked in the garden. We didn't find any mushrooms, but there were some interesting rocks along the road. Lots of mica. And Em hunted for items for her Stone-Age Survival class. She found a rib bone for her bow drill, and some wood for spears.

When we got back, Em helped clean the rabbit room, and Richard wrestled a couple of big rocks out of the top bed. He heaved them out with sheer muscle – no walking them, or levering and shoring them up bit by bit. Weird.

Richard fixed the tiller – I'd managed to loosen a bolt and till it into the rocky parking area out north of the gym. I had done the tilling at the end of the day Thursday, and was plumb tired before I rattled my brain pan carving up that hard-packed ground. The missing bolt made the machine buck and wobble, and as the throttle stuck, the tiller and I slowly tilted to starboard, and went down, grandly, like an ocean liner. Far as I know there were no witnesses.

It works like a champ now, and before he went home Richard tilled some manure and old hay into the tomato bed for Tomato Planting Day.

Em assembled her bow drill, and worked on making fire. It was cool to watch – she had a shaft of yucca stem, a bone handle, and cattail fluff to catch the spark.

Em pushes and pulls the bone bow to make the cord spin the shaft, which sits in a hole in the board where the dry cattail fluff is ready to burn.